She’s only nine, but Ravyn Krivak already has a good handle on some basic principles of doing business.

“It can’t be too expensive,” she explains as she watches her little brother Easton pour a glass of lemonade for Calgary firefighter Tyler Rabel.

“It’s also good if you can call out loud so you get people’s attention — and you should also be nice to your customers.”

On Wednesday morning, the adorable girl and her two younger siblings, six-year-old Hennessey and five-year-old Easton, are working at a lemonade stand in the community of Mount Pleasant.

It’s a bit of a distance from their regular neighbourhood corner in the community of Chaparrel Valley, but they’ve made the trek for a good reason.

The wooden stand they’re doing their selling demonstration from, hopes Lisa Dixon-Wells, will be just one of at least 351 lemonade stands set to appear along the Eau Claire promenade during the lunch hour on Thursday, Sept. 18.

If she can pull it off, then Dixon-Wells, founder of the Calgary-based, national Dare to Care bullying prevention program, will make it into the record books.

“The Guinness record for most lemonade stands in one place is 400 metres,” says Dixon-Wells, whose upcoming fundraising initiative, “The World’s Longest Lemonade Stand,” comes with the clever pitch: Take a Stand — Lemonade Stand — Against Bullying.

“We don’t need to surpass it by more than one stand, but I think it’ll be a fun thing for Calgarians to try.”

The record is currently held by a group of kids, teachers and parents representing the Birmingham Public Schools District in Beverly Hills, Michigan, who accomplished the feat in 2011.

Beating it, notes Dixon-Wells, isn’t as simple as it might sound.

“They need to be consecutive, touching each other,” she says of the record attempt that also required going through hoops with insurance and local health officials.

“We also need to sell lemonade for two hours.”

Thanks to a tradition of balmy Septembers, lemonade stands can still be found on neighbourhood street corners throughout the city on warm weekends. Dixon-Wells says she chose the iconic summertime fixture because it’s one of those happy memories of childhood.

“It’s also a reminder that when summer ends and the school year is starting, it can be a torturous time for many kids,” she says.

“At this time of year, a lot of kids are suffering from anxiety, they’re fearful and they’re having sleepless nights, knowing that the bullying is about to begin again.”

The first six weeks back at school, she says, is the time period when most bullying patterns are formed — and if left unchecked, can become a fixture of life for its victims. “Every kid should be excited, not scared, for the new school year. If we can catch those incidents when they’re just starting, we can break the cycle.”

Dixon-Wells, one of Canada’s pioneers in providing bullying awareness and prevention programs to the school community, has devoted the past two decades of her life to the cause. After getting a master’s degree in education, in the mid-1990s she began assembling a “best practices” program for empowering school-age children, an interdisciplinary approach that educates kids, teachers and parents; since 1999, her Dare to Care program has brought the message and tools for success to schools across the city and, more recently, around the country.

Despite her longtime work, Dixon-Wells acknowledges that it’s an uphill battle to work in the field of bullying prevention. Over the past few years, governments in nearly every province have legislated that bullying prevention and education be taught in schools, without providing additional funds for such an initiative.

“Legislation looks great on paper,” she says, “but if you don’t provide the resources to make it happen, it’ll go nowhere.”

The higher profile of the issue has also made her work more important.

“Bullying is the most overused word of the decade,” she says, something she adds has done “a great disservice” to veterans like her on the front lines.

“There’s been confusion between it and normal peer conflict, which gets us through the ups and downs of life,” she says.

“That’s why we need to keep educating kids and adults on how to spot it and address it.”

Partnering with local firms Baytex Energy Corp. and BOS Solutions Ltd, Dixon-Wells is hoping to attract local businesses to sponsor individual stands at $550 each, as well as volunteers to help her and her small crew of about seven build them (click here for more info).

“It’s very ambitious,” she says of the Guinness World Record attempt, “but we’re going to have fun trying.”

Ravyn Krivak is one who is confident the team can pull it off.

“They just need to make sure the lemonade tastes good. That’s the most important thing.”

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